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"How does a physician subscribing to "first do no harm" find himself or herself
prescribing either drugs that are
inherently harmful or drugs at hazardous
levels?
The answer is not complex. "Follow the
money" is all one needs to do." - Tom Pula
If the drug
companies are so truthful and honest about the risks and benefit of using their
drugs why do they make it impossible for
medical scientists to understand the results
of clinical trials? And why do they make it impossible for
consumers to access those results?
"The reason for encouraging independent studies of clinical trials is
that doing so can offer clues to risks and dangerous side effects that begin to
show up in significant numbers only after the drug is on the
market." - Ricardo
Alonso-Zaldivar
not
feeling very well
today?
 this exquisitely
beautiful pill is the 'solution'!
believe it - the 'solution' - at long last!
feel it - your floating on
clouds!
dream it -
dreamtime heaven returns!
no
illness can stop you now!!!
!!!!! you are
invincible !!!!!
To stay in the
game all you have to do
is find the appropriate
chemical combination!
Americans spent
$279 billion on prescribed drugs in
2006.
Pharmaceutical pushers (oops! I'm bad - I meant "salesmen"!) spend up to a $1 billion
to market the next blockbuster
drug.
An estimated 80 percent of the active
pharmaceutical ingredients used to make
drugs sold in
America are imported, and an estimated 40
percent of finished drugs are made in
foreign countries - much of both in China.
Aspirations of being elevated to a position outside
of nature, where the
natural physical laws of nature can be preempted,
ultimately result in disappointment. The only thing that will ever elevate
living
human beings physically out of
nature, making then immune to
nature and reality, is death.
"Sick
days are typically unplanned, which results in
significant burdens to corporations
when individuals do not show up as
expected." - Rick Chaifetz,
CEO of ComPysch, (human resources)
"People are being
forced to chose between being a
good employee or being a good family member.
That's not a choice anyone should have to make." - Linda Meric, director of
9 to 5, National Association of Working Women
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
turned to a nonprofit front group erected by Shaw Science Partners, a
public relations firm that specializes in launching new drugs ," to help the
public understand direct-to-consumer drug ads with a new web site - EthicAd.
EthicAd, the nonprofit behind the FDA site, is funded by Shaw Science
Partners and its own board members. Shaw Group founder Michael Shaw
admitted that "if not all, almost all" of EthicAd's funders "do work for
industry." EthicAd shares the same physical address as Shaw Science
Partners.
To understand how
social control
through drugs works one must understand
the human
ego.
Popular
American behavior is ingrained by
commercial messages endlessly
repeated.
These commercial
messages are directed at the individual, you.
American mass media
endlessly brands you with
product.
After all,
buying this product is the
solution to good
health!
The greatest
human failing is the support of
ego through
fantasy.
You
fantasize, "Finally, the
solution!"
You want to
believe, you need to
believe.
This is how you are trapped
with drugs.
It does not matter if
the drugs are legal or illegal - you are
still trapped. Trapped how?
Trapped by your need to
believe in the miraculous properties of the
drug to continue to make you feel
good!
No human will ever
know what it is like to inhabit
another
humans body.
You can
empathize with
another's
pain but you can not
experience it directly.
You can not
know what it feels like to be perfectly healthy just as you can not
know the details of the
pain
another experiences. If you have never
experienced acute
pain then you can not
know how that
pain feels. And there are so many diseases and
disorders to fear!
Do you feel
good? Are you right with the Earth?
You say NO?!
Have
I got the 'perfect' drug for YOU!
"When patients
ask for a drug, they tend to get the
drug regardless of whether it is
appropriate for them."
- Joel Weissman, a health
policy expert at Harvard Medical
School.
The problem is there really are no 'perfect' drugs.
"Insurance companies are profit making corporations
operating in a market economy trying to outdo their competitors." - Donald
Schwartz MDUnderwriting guidelines for several
individual health
insurance plans list certain drugs that
are likely to render the user ineligible for health insurance. The question
then becomes - are the drugs in and of
themselves harmful or does use of the drugs truly point to underlying conditions
that frighten insurers away?
Either way it seems to be in the
individuals best
interest to not be using any of the listed drugs unless it is quite obvious that not
using the listed drug brings on life
threatening conditions.
Individuals may be refused
individual health
insurance coverage if they use any of the following
drugs: cholesterol reducers - Lipitor,
Zocor; digestive tract problems - Nexium, Prevacid,
Protinix, Tagamet; asthma control - Advair, Singulair;
depression control - Zoloft, Celexa, Prozac;
attention deficit disorder control
- Concerta, Ritalin; allergies
control - Allegra; acne control - Accutane;
arthritis pain control - Celebrex; herpes
control - Famvir; angina
control - Imdur; migraine
control - Imitrex; fungal
control - Lamisil; menstrual disorders -
Parolodel; hyperthyroid disorder - Tapazole; epilepsy
control - Topamax.
"It is an egregious
mistake to think that the mission of health insurance companies is to provide
healthcare for the seriously ill. Commercial insurers fulfill their legal and
corporate mission by making profits for their investors, not by providing care
for the expensively ill. They do this by avoiding people who are or may become
seriously ill. The most successful companies do this better than their
competitors. Precisely because this is and must remain the true north of
commercial insurance, every other developed nation pushes commercial insurance
to the margins of their systems. When we learn this basic lesson in the United
States, we will have taken a giant step toward radical reform." - John W.
Glaser
The
Food and Drug Administration
warned doctors, patients and their families
March 22, 2004 that popular
antidepressants could cause
deepening depression and even
suicide. Those involved with
antidepressants should look
out for agitation,
hostility,
mania and other forms of violent behavior that have been
associated with antidepressants.
The link
between antidepressants 'serotonin reuptake inhibitors' and violence came under scrutiny in a trial stemming from
the case of Joseph Westbecker. After using Prozac Joseph Westbecker
killed himself and eight
others at a Louisville, Kentucky
printing plant.
Survivors and relatives of the dead
sued Eli Lilly, Prozac's manufacturer.
The jury ruled in the Eli Lilly's
favor after the plaintiffs'
lawyers rested their case without presenting
key evidence.
An investigation showed that
Eli Lilly had given
huge settlements to the plantiffs and their
lawyers.
In 1997, the judge changed
the official record from a jury verdict
in Eli Lilly's
favor to dismissal of a settled case.
"It's an example par excellence of the behind the scenes maneuvering
that the corporations have done
repeatedly to obscure the side effects from
public view." - Doctor Joseph Glenmullen, a Havard
Medical School psychiatrist.
Traci Johnson
believed it was God's plan for her to leave home and attend
Bible college - and she
prayed every
day for the Lord to provide for her
tuition.
An unusual
opportunity presented itself.
Eli Lilly, was
seeking healthy subjects for a live-in
clinical drug trial. The 19 year old
freshman could make $150 a day for 49
days more than a year's worth of her school expenses for taking a
drug known as duloxetine, an
antidepressant relative of
Prozac.
The Food and Drug Administration
approved Prozac in 1987 and since then
sales have totaled more than $21 billion. By the late 1990s, the patent on
Prozac was about to expire, and the
company needed a sequel. Eli Lilly
began looking at duloxetine, a patented
agent that not only affects serotonin, like
Prozac, but also norepinephrine,
another brain chemical.
Traci Johnson was fine until three days after the final dose in the clinical
drug trial. Traci Johnson's now had the
resources for Bible College. Traci
Johnson was also looking forward to her sister
giving birth. Traci Johnson prayers
to God must have seemed
answered. Unfortunately a
chemical imbalance, due to the
duloxetine, took hold of Traci Johnson.
Traci Johnson hung herself with a scarf. Traci Johnson left no
suicide note.
In 2003 when concerns arose about a possible link between
children taking
antidepressant
drugs and
suicide attempts, senior
officials
Food and Drug Administration
ordered their leading expert to head
up an examination of the evidence. When the
government scientist filed his report in the winter of
2003, however, his superiors decided to keep it secret. The report concluded that
children who took
antidepressant
drugs were twice as likely to be involved
in serious suicide
related
behavior and
violent
behavior as those who did
not.
Rick Lohstroh's 10 year old son was
prescribed Prozac at the request of his
mother - Deborah Geisler, a registered
nurse. Prozac was prescribed by the
medical profession in an attempt to dull the intensity of the
feelings the
boy was experiencing due to his mother's and father's
nasty divorce. Prozac instead facilitated
the commission of a violent act.
On August
27th, 2004, without a this ten year old
boy shot his father in the back, killing him in September 2004. The boy was given a 10
year prison sentence.
Prosecuters would have preferred to put Deborah on
trial as they believe
Parental
Alienation Syndrome was a mitagating factor in Rick Lohstroh's
patricide but Parental
Alienation Syndrome is not yet recognized by law.
From 1987 to 1996 psychotropic drug use among
children and
teens nearly tripled. Visits by
children ages 12 to 17 for mental health
treatment increased by nearly 900,000 from 2002 to 2004.
Antidepressant
drugs, Prozac, Zolott, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Etrexor, Wellbutrin,
Serzone and
Remeron are taken by over 30 million
Americans. The first seven are in the
drug
category
known as 'serotonin
reuptake inhibitors,' and their sales in 2003 exceeded those of any
other
drug class except opiates.
If you happen to believe that American
psychiatrists are just there to help you
and that pharmaceutical manufactures do not sway them as far as their
pronouncement of the ability of pharmaceuticals to help solve mental health
issues then you have not heard of Charles B. Nemeroff, Melissa P. DelBello or
Joseph Biederman.
Psychiatrist
Charles B. Nemeroff, editor in chief of the influential journal
Neuropsychopharmacology, earned more than $2.8 million in consulting
arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007 and failed to report at least
$1.2 million of that income. Charles B. Nemeroff was the principal investigator
for a five-year $3.9 million grant financed by the National Institute of Mental
Health for which GlaxoSmithKline provided drugs. From 2000 through 2006,
Charles B. Nemeroff earned more than $960,000 from GlaxoSmithKline but listed
earnings of less than $35,000. Charles B. Nemeroff failed to disclose conflicts
of interest in trials of drugs from Merck, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.
Psychiatrist Melissa P. DelBello
claimed she earned about $100,000 from 2005 to 2007 from eight drug makers, but
AstraZeneca alone paid her $238,000 during the period.
Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, a renowned
child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical
School, and a colleague, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, reported earning several
hundred thousand dollars each in consulting fees from pharmaceutical
manufactures from 2000 to 2007, when in fact they had earned at least $1.6
million each.
A new study released in October 2008 in the
Journal of the American Medical Association found that reporters for
print and online media outlets failed 42 percent of the time to mention drug
company funding of research cited in their "news" stories. 67 percent of "news" stories mentioned the brand names of drugs
rather than their generic names, further reinforcing pharmaceutical industry
marketing campaigns.
In 1999
Eli Lilly discovered that
Zyprexa, a drug
Eli Lilly designed to treat
bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia, caused excessive weight gain in patients leading to diabetes.
Eli Lilly encouraged doctors
to prescribe Zyprexa to elderly
patients with early signs of dementia.
In the first class action filed
over Zyprexa
Eli Lilly settled with 8000 plaintiffs
for $700 million in 2005.
Eli
Lilly required that all sensitive documents be sealed and the settlement
remain a secret.
Eli Lilly went on to sell $4.2 billion
worth of Zyprexa in
2005.
Legally the of
Zyprexa were
secreted away so
Eli Lilly could continue to sell large
quantities of Zyprexa.
The
responsibility of the executives running
Eli Lilly is not to the
consumers of it's products but to
it's shareholders.
The fact that the
Zyprexa could adversely effect the
lives of consumer's was simply
figured in as a cost of doing business.
18 months after the first
settlement Eli Lilly settled with
another 18,000 plaintiffs who sued over the adverse effects of
Zyprexa after the first trial
documents were publicized by a third party unrelated to the
settlement.
Note on
bipolar disorder:
In 1994
20,000 American children and adolescents were
diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In 2003 800,000 children and adolescents were diagnosed with
bipolar disorder.
Within
9 years children and adolescents diagnosed with
bipolar disorder has risen
exponentially - 40 times levels 9 years earlier.
Either
bipolar disorder is increasing at
an alarming rate or the standard for diagnosing
bipolar disorder has gone down.
Boys that behave aggressively or exhibit irritable behavior become much
more compliant when given mood stabilizers,
antidepressants or antipsychotics and parents are relieved of the stigma
of poor parenting as bipolar
disorder is thought to be an inherited
trait.
If you can not control them -
try Zyprexa to control them!
"I call it the
juvenile bipolar juggernaut. The
diagnoses has been broadened considerably and I think that's a big problem." - Joseph Woolston,
chief of child psychiatry at Yale University Hospital
The
truth is this: the best drug for controlling
bipolar disorder is marijuana - of course the
pharmacuetical manufactures would not make hundreds of million of dollars as
those with bipolar disorder could grow their own medicine in the
backyard.
On September 17, 2008 a government funded study confirmed that
Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, and Risperdal, made by Janssen were no more
effective than earlier antipsychotics. Initially they were
marketed as being better because they
reduced side effects such as uncontrolled shaking or tremors.
Painkillers do not
kill the pain they just make pain easier to endure.Do you have
arthritic pain? The new
wonder drug Vioxx is for you! Oops sorry,
pulled due to risk of stroke and heart attack in September 2004. (Merck
had $2.5 billion in sales from Vioxx
in 2003.)
Perhaps one of the other Cox-2 inhibitors like Celebrex or
Bextra is for you! Watch your national network television channel for more new
wonder drug
advertisements, oops I mean
announcements!
A study that concluded
that low doses of Vioxx increase the risk of
heart attack by 50% was finally
released by the Food and Drug
Administration in Febuary 2005, 3 months after it was originally
scheduled to be released to the medical journal Lancet. This allowed the
drug companies to complete a
propaganda offense stating even lower doses
of Vioxx should be allowed.
David Graham of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Safety stated that Vioxx has caused
as many as 140,000 cases of heart
disease and killed up to 56,000 people.
In
December 2005 it was discovered
that the clinical trial
of Vioxx, conducted to gain approval by the Food and Drug Administration,
conveniently neglected to mention the three
individuals who
suffered heart attacks during the
clinical trial. The
pharmaceutical
industry is concerned only with the bottom
line and if the facts get in way then sweep them under the
rug!
OxyContinOxyContin is oxycodone, an
opioid analgesic medication synthesized from thebaine. Thebaine (paramorphine)
is an opiate alkaloid. A minor constituent of opium, thebaine is chemically similar to both
morphine and codeine.
In May of 2007 Purdue Pharma executives plead
guilty to charges that they mislead
the government about the risk of addiction to OxyContin. Purdue Pharma claimed
oxycodone was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other opiates.
Purdue Pharma, its president, top lawyer and former chief medical officer will
pay $634.5 million in fines. In 2004, 36,000 people made emergency room visits
due to oxycodone overdoses.
"From 1996 to 2001, the number of
oxycodone-related deaths nationwide increased 400 percent while the annual
number of OxyContin prescriptions increased nearly 20-fold, according to a
report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2002, the DEA said the
drug caused 146 deaths and contributed to another 318." - International
Herald Tribune
Many oxycodone overdoses resulted in death which
should have brought criminal charges! Exempt!
Corporate officers have no duty to be
socially responsible!
NSAIDsNon-steroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs, usually abbreviated to NSAIDs, are
drugs with analgesic, antipyretic and
anti-inflammatory effects - they reduce pain, fever and inflammation.
More than 100,000 people are hospitalized each year because of adverse
reactions to NSAIDs. More than 15,000 people die, often because of
compliciations caused by bleeding or perforated ulcers.
Drugs in this class include ibuprofen
(Advil, Motrin), diclofenac (Cataflam, Voltaren), meloxicam (Mobic), naproxen
(Aleve, Naprosyn) and indomethacin (Indocin). In addition to digestive-tract
damage, NSAIDs can raise blood
pressure and increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as injure
kidneys and the liver.
phenylpropanolamine and catastrophic
strokeTracy Patton, at 37, suffered
a catastrophic stroke.
She has a list in
the bathroom so she can remember her
personal hygiene process.
Tricia Newenham,
at 15, suffered a stroke, spent a
month in a coma and is now totally
blind and
profoundly mentally impaired. When
reminiscing about her prom dates and
nights at the
movies, she dissolves into
inconsolable sobbing, condemned to
remember just enough of what her
life was like then to
understand how much less it
is now.
Only hours before these
devastating strokes, each
victim had taken a seemingly innocuous
over-the-counter cold medicine, one of
millions of doses consumed annually
nationwide. The medicines contained phenylpropanolamine, the active ingredient in
scores of popular nonprescription
decongestants and diet aids until November 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration
declared
phenylpropanolamine unsafe and
drug
companies to stop selling it.
By then, the
drug industry had spent more than two decades
fending off growing evidence of a possible link between
phenylpropanolamine and hemorrhagic stroke.
But Tracy Patton and Tricia Newenham were among hundreds of
phenylpropanolamine
consumers who
suffered attacks
after a landmark study - sponsored by the drug industry - in 1999 that the use of
phenylpropanolamine was associated with an
increased risk of that deadliest form of
stroke.
Recently obtained internal company documents show that rather than alerting the
public during cold season, the
drug industry launched a yearlong
campaign to keep the results quiet
and stall government
regulation. By the time the
phenylpropanolamine was removed from
over-the-counter cold medicine, 13 months and
hundreds of strokes later, the companies had
reformulated their brand names with
little interruption in sales and cash flow.
The market for
phenylpropanolamine has been estimated at
$500 million to $1 billion
annually. In the interim,
Americans continued to purchase
phenylpropanolamine
products off the shelf and assume they were
safe.
"It never even dawned on us," said Tim A. Bybee, Tricia
Newenham's stepfather,
speaking of the
Triaminic cold syrup Tricia took shortly
before her stroke. "It was in the store. Everyone uses it."
The pharmaceutical
industry consistently challenged any
notion that phenylpropanolamine could be
and dismissed evidence to the
contrary. They also show that the
manufacturers assured the
public that
phenylpropanolamine was safe even as some
Food and Drug Administration
scientists and
industry
officials were raising concerns. As
early as 1982, an Food and Drug
Administration report warned that phenylpropanolamine had "the ability to cause
cardiovascular effects, cerebral hemorrhage and cardiac arrhythmias."
Two years later, a memo from the medical
services department at Sandoz
Pharmaceuticals, which made the
phenylpropanolamine
products Triaminic and Tavist-D, referred to
phenylpropanolamine as "an agent
known to cause hypertension and stroke," yet
the pharmaceutical
industry accelerated their
marketing of phenylpropanolamine,
winning Food and Drug Administration
approval to sell prescription
phenylpropanolamine
products on an over-the-counter basis and
even introducing flavorful new formulas for young
children.
Upon learning that the
1999 study had found a stroke link, the pharmaceutical
industry opened a relentless
assault on its methodology and on
the integrity of the Yale University
researchers who conducted it. The
pharmaceutical
industry did so despite having paid for
the five year, $5
million study themselves, approving its protocol and
hand picking investigators who had
previously expressed
skepticism about a
link between phenylpropanolamine and cerebral hemorrhage.
The pharmaceutical
industry hoped to
survive the 2000 cold season without pulling
phenylpropanolamine
products. Early in November 2000 two weeks
after an Food and Drug
Administration advisory panel concluded that
phenylpropanolamine could be hazardous, an
official with
Bayer, which made
Alka-Seltzer Plus with
phenylpropanolamine, drafted a proposed "phenylpropanolamine crisis action plan."
Its stated objectives:
"Delay mandatory implementation of Food and Drug Administration
recommendation. Blunt PR impact by highlighting as questionable study conclusions as they pertain to
cough/cold products."
indigestion, heartburn
and chronically upset stomachsChronically
upset stomachs (due to toxic chemical
stew found in highly processed food) have created a whole new set of
drugs. Gastric acid blocker
drugs will allow you to eat any highly
processed mixture of trans fat,
high fructose corn syrup and
chemicals, like the
artificial butter flavoring,
diacetyl and melamine.
Trans fats are created when
vegetable oils undergo a chemical
process known as hydrogenation. The classical
example of a hydrogenation is the addition of
hydrogen on unsaturated bonds
between carbon atoms, converting alkenes to alkanes. Numerous applications are
found in the pharmaceutical and
petrochemical industries. All reactions between organic compounds and
hydrogen require metal catalysts.
With rare exception, no reaction below 480 °C occurs between
hydrogen and organic compounds in
the absence of metal catalysts.
"Trans fats, a manufactured byproduct
of the partial hydrogenation of any vegetable oil, sabotage cell membranes,
inhibiting cells from performing their intended functions. Cells all over the
body cannot perform the exquisite and delicate work they were designed to do
once partially hydrogenated oil is absorbed." - Judith Shaw
"So many
different compounds can be made during partial hydrogenation that they stagger
the imagination. Scientists have barely
scratched the surface of studying changes induced in fats and oils by partial
hydrogenation." - Udo Erasmus
Beginning January
1, 2006 food makers must disclose levels of trans fats on nutritional labels.
Trans fats are worse for the heart
than dairy products, such as butter and cream,
as they line arterial walls and are far harder for the
human body to break down. The health
department of the city of
New York has banned the use of trans fats in ALL food
products! Trans fats are one atom away from
plastic.)
The makers of Splenda claim Splenda is
natural, made from sugar. The makers of
Splenda fail to tell you that the chemical process that creates Splenda turns
sugar into sucralose. The sucralose molecule is an organochloride. Some
organochlorides are known to cause adverse health effects in extremely small
concentrations. Many organochlorides have significant biological activities.
Many powerful and effective insecticides are organochlorides. Common examples
include DDT, 2,4-D, dicofol, heptachlor, endosulfan, chlordane, mirex, and
pentachlorophenol.Those who drink at least one soda, diet or not, a
day have a 31% greater risk of becoming obese;
25% higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar; 32%
greater risk of having low levels of good cholesterol and a increased risk of
high blood pressure.
YOUR STOMACH UPSET? TRY THESE NEW
MIRACLE DRUGS!
You can eat
ANYTHING now! Sawdust, tran fats, diacetyl,
preservatives, chemicals, ANYTHING!!!
Oops, we forgot
to disclose that these may also cause
irritable bowel
syndrome, renal failure, liver
failure and reduce bone density.
The Food and Drug Administration has
reports of diarrhea so severe, called ischemic colitis, in users of the
irritable-bowel treatment Zelnonn that it caused such complications as low
blood pressure and fainting. The
Food and Drug Administration has received 20
reports of ischemic colitis, since Zelnonn went on sale in 2002, fourteen
patients were hospitalized, four died. The Food and Drug Administration advised
patients who experience new or worsened
abdominal pain or
blood in their stools to stop
taking the drug and call a
doctor.
New research released in late 2005 shows that an
individual that uses the
popular prescription heartburn drugs -
Prilosec, Prevacid, and Nexium - are more prone to getting a potentially
severe diarrhea caused by
clostridium difficile bacteria.
In December 2006 the Journal
of the American Medical association reported that the use of Nexium,
Prilosec, Prevacid, Protinix reduces calcium absorption in the small intestine
resulting in increased risk of hip fractures. Long term users had 260% the
average risk of hip fracture.
stimulants and
antihistaminesAccording to a Food and Drug Administration report
released in February 2006, 25 people - including 19 children - died within a 4
year period suddenly while using hyperactivity
drugs or
attention deficit
disorder drugs which include Ritalin,
Concerta, Methylin and Metadate. Additionally, 43 people taking the
drugs for
attention deficit
disorder experienced serious
cardiovascular events, including strokes, cardiac arrest and heart
palpitations; 26 serious cardiovascular problems were reported in children,
including two heart attacks and two strokes.
In 2006 about 3.3 million
Americans 19 or younger and nearly 1.5 million age 20 and older were taking
attention deficit
disorder medicines. 3,100 people went to emergency rooms last year for
attention deficit
disorder medication overdoses.
A federal survey found
that nearly 1 in 10 12-year-old American boys
takes a stimulant. From 2001 to 2006 usage of
hyperactivity
drugs increased 60%. Children in America
are prescribed hyperactivity
drugs at 10 times the rate that children
are prescribed hyperactivity
drugs in Europe.
Up until 2001 it was illegal to market
hyperactivity
drugs.
In 2001
pharmaceutical manufactures began
aggressively marketing
hyperactivity
drugs in magazine
advertisments, claiming such
advertising to be protected as free
speech under the First Amendment. When it
became apparent the George W. Bush Justice Department was not going to enforce
existing law or
challenge the pharmaceutical
manufactures then aggressive marketing of
hyperactivity
drugs began in
television
advertisments.
(Hyperactivity
drugs and antihistamines, especially
pseudoephedrine are most definitely gateway drugs to methamphetamine use. Their chemical
properties are similar to methamphetamine and they have similar
psychotropic effect as methamphetamine.
Amphetamines are first marketed as
'Benzedrine' in an over-the-counter inhaler to treat congestion.
)
Maggie Preston said this about being prescribed Ritalin, "It
was kind of like weirdly amazing. You get excited about monotonous
work, honestly."
Evan Cirese said this
about being prescribed stimulant medication,"School never really interested me. I'm more
hands on. For a while in high school I felt
like I was controlled by it, was dependent on
it. Now I can't function properly without it."
After taking stimulant
medication for 6 years Robert Wall said this about medicating children, "It
seems everyone is diagnosed attention deficit disorder.
The parenting decision these days is " Don't
teach them, just sit them down and give them a crack pipe and an
Xbox"."
"Stimulants have been used since 1937 to treat what we now call
attention deficit
disorder or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder. I'm a psychiatrist who has
attention deficit
disorder. I have been treating
attention deficit
disorder in children and adults for the last 25 years and have written
books on the subject. I am also the father of two children who take stimulant
medication for attention
deficit disorder. People with
attention deficit
disorder (as well as those with
dyslexia,
depression,
bipolar disorder or
anxiety disorders)
usually have extraordinary talents that get buried under troubles and
disappointments. It's important that people with
attention deficit
disorder get help learning to organize themselves and that they get plenty
of positive human contact. (They
usually get plenty of criticism.) Getting enough sleep, eating right and
getting lots of physical exercise help with
attention deficit
disorder (and everything else)." - Edward M. Hallowell,
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell suggests help learning
organizational skills, positive human contact,
enough sleep, eating right and lots of physical excercise to overcome
attention deficit
disorder. Of course it is easier to just pop a pill!
methamphetamine, crystal meth, tina,
krank, tweak, iceMethamphetamine
creates euphoria and excitement by acting
directly on the brain's reward mechanisms, thus making it highly addictive.
Methamphetamine rapidly enters the
brain and causes a cascading release of norepinephrine and
dopamine (and to a lesser
extent, serotonin). Users may
become obsessed or perform repetitive
tasks such as cleaning, hand-washing or assembling and disassembling
objects.
Methamphetamine was first synthesized
from ephedrine in Japan in 1893 by chemist
Nagayoshi Nagai.
Adolf
Hitler received daily injections of methamphetamine. So did
John F. Kennedy.
Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht distributed
methamphetamine tablets to
German fighting troops throughout
World War II. The
Japanese used
methamphetamine to help the teen
age suicide
bombers (kamikaze) to complete their airplane
flights to their intended American warship
targets.
Amphetamines are "power drugs"
that reduce fatigue, heighten
aggression, and diminish
human warmth and
empathy. Long-term use of
amphetamines often exacerbates
depression. When used chronically
amphetamines induce stereotyped
thought and behavior rather than
creativity.
During
World War II massive amounts of
methamphetamines were produced by
both the Allies and Axis powers. After
World War II there were huge
stockpiles of methamphetamines left
in many countries, especially in Japan and
throughout northern Europe. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a huge surge in
methamphetamine abuse was noted in
Scandinavia and Japan following the dumping
of these methamphetamine stocks
onto the civilian market.
In 1967
there was 31 million prescriptions in America
for amphetamines.
Methamphetamine is still used by the
American military to keep
pilots and soldiers
!
Chronic and/or extensively-continuous use
can lead to amphetamine psychosis, which causes
delusions and paranoia.
The
unintended consequences of the extensive
use of methamphetamine by the
militaries of Japan,
Germany and
America and the ease of access directly after
World War II has led to an
epidemic of methamphetamines use.
In 1994, 263 meth labs were
seized in America.
In 2000, 1,800
meth labs were seized by Drug
Enforcement Agency, 4,600 meth
labs were seized by local police in America.
In March 2007 a raid in Mexico yielded $205 million in cash, mostly
$100 dollar bills, weighing 4,500 pounds
earned selling methamphetamines.
ecstacy or mdma,
methylenedioxymethamphetamineMDMA was legal in
America until May 31, 1985.
For those
that find ecstacy, MDMA, a
stimulating drug it might interest them
to know that MDMA was used in clandestine
research during the 1950s. The Central Intelligence Agency's
Project MKULTRA was investigating new techniques of brainwashing, espionage and
mind control.
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was one of the
test subjects. MDMA, code-named
EA-1475, was tested at the US Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. The Central Intelligence Agency
hoped MDMA could be used as a chemical warfare agent designed to sow confusion, anxiety and fear in the unwilling recipient.
"A
lot of the Ecstasy we see in Las Vegas comes from Israeli dealers." - Sergeant Blake Quackenbush,
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
"Oded Tuito was
known as the world's largest trafficker of
MDMA." - DEA administrator Karen Tandy before the U.S. House of Representatives
Appropriations Committee
Oded Tuito imported more than 7 million
"Ecstacy" pills into America before being
arrested.
From 1994 to 2004 Israeli
drug traffickers dominated the trans-Atlantic lines of shipment of
MDMA.
Oded Tuito* died
mysteriously while incarcerated in a New York jail.
erectile
dysfunctionCan't get it up! Try Viagra or Cialis! But please if
you have high blood pressure or
heart disease do not use these drugs as
they may cause blindness!
If things look blue - watch out!
Men without high
blood pressure or heart disease
exercise regularly and have no problem 'getting it up'! Women past menopause
and not on hormone thearpy have no sexual desire thus no need for
erections!
The FDA warned consumers that True Man and Energy Max,
"dietary supplements" marketed as treatments for erectile dysfunction,
contained ingredients that could lower blood pressure to
levels in some
users.
dry skin or
eczemaHave eczema? The solution
lies in Elidel and Protopic, unless you prefer not to contract skin or lymphoma
cancer!
weight loss
pillsThe Federal Trade Commission fined the makers of Xenadrine
EFX, One-A-Day WeightSmart, CortiSlim and TrimSpa $25 million in January 2007
for making false
advertising claims which included
rapid weight loss, cancer prevention, reduction in risk of osteoporosis and
Alzheimers.
aprotinin
Scheduled for surgery? Hopefully your doctor will give you a generic
drug to keep you from bleeding to
death. Aprotinin, also called Trasylola, a
heavily marketed still under patent
Bayer drug, causes kidney failure sending an estimated 10,000 people a year to
kidney dialysis centers. Does Bayer have
a stake in the dialysis centers? Aprotinin also increases the risk of heart
failure by 109% and stroke by 181%.
recombinant activated factor
VIIRecombinant Activated Factor VII is an
experimental drug used on
severely wounded soldiers in Iraq. It costs six thousand per dose. Side effects
include blood clots leading to
strokes, heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms.
"It's a completely
irresponsible and inappropriate use of a very, very
drug." - Jawed Fareed director of
homostasis and thrombosis research at Loyola University Chicago and a
specialist in blood clotting and
blood thinning
medications.
carmustine, cisplatin,
cytarabine and other chemotherapy
drugsCancer chemotherapy
impairs the brain, killing crucial
neural cells and causing key
parts of the organ to shrink, according to two studies released in November
2006. The new findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the
mental fuzziness, memory
loss and cognitive impairment often reported
by cancer patients but often dismissed
by oncologists - is a serious problem. Key areas of the brain including the
prefrontal, parahippocampus and cingulate gyri shrink during chemotherapy. The
damage continues for several months after chemotherapy is stopped.
"Those of us on the front lines have known this for a long time, now we have some
neuropathological evidence that what we are seeing involves an anatomic
change," said Dr. Stewart Fleishman*, director of
cancer supportive
services at Beth Israel Medical
Center and St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.
vytorin and
zetiaIn 2007 Merck and Schering-Plough sold $5.2 billion of the
anti-cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia. Vytorin, which combines the unique
cholesterol drug Zetia with the traditional statin drug simvastatin, was found
to be no better than simvastatin alone for reducing plaque buildup in the
carotid arteries.
In fact, patients taking Vytorin actually had
slightly more plaque buildup during the trial than those taking simvastatin
alone. Merck and Schering-Plough completed the ENHANCE study in 2005 but failed
to announce the results.
"Today's announcement that the ENHANCE study
failed to find any positive benefit from the addition of Zetia to a common,
inexpensive, generic therapy raised concerns that attempts were made to mask
the minimal value of this new drug."-
Representative John Dingell, Committee on Energy and Commerce chairman 1/15/08
"In light of today's results, which were released nearly two years
after the ENHANCE trial ended, it is easy to conclude that Merck and
Schering-Plough intentionally sought to delay the release of this data."
-Representative Bart Stupak, chairs the oversight subcommittee
antibioticsThe widely used antibiotic
erythromycin, prescribed for bacterial infections from strep throat to
syphilis, has been on the market for 50
years and has long been considered safe. Published in New England Journal of Medicine in September
of 2004 a new study systematically documented
the dramatic increase of cardiac arrest associated with erythromycin use.
"This study shows the need for continuing research on the safety of
older medicines, including how they interact with newer
drugs." -
researcher Wayne A. Ray, a professor of
preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in
Nashville.
"Nobody realized the
magnitude of the problem before." - Dr.
Muhamed Sanc, cardiologist and director of the electro cardiology laboratory at
the University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey in Newark.
ketekThe Food and Drug Administration
approved Ketek in 2004 to treat severe infections. The Food and Drug Administration
submitted clinical trial data that key officials knew to be tainted by
scientific fraud including
fictitious patients. Several users of Ketek experienced liver failure.
calcium
suppliments and hormone therapy
A massive federal study, the $18-million Women's
Health Initiative published in the
New England Journal of Medicine, showed that calcium supplements made no
significant difference in woman's bone density and did not significantly reduce
bone fractures.
An earlier Women's Health Initiative study
showed hormone treatment after menopause conferred more risks than
benefits.In January 2007 a state court jury
in Philadelphia found Wyeth "malicious, wanton ,willful or oppressive" in the
manufacturing, marketing and sales of
Prempro menopause pill. Mary Daniel, after using the hormone therapy pill,
contracted breast cancer. Around 5000
lawsuits wait to be heard over the hormone therapies Prempro and
Premarin.
breast implants
In February 2008 the United
States Supreme Court ruled that any medical device maker whose medical device
has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration may not be sued
even if the device fails to perform as advertised.
"I have enlarged the breasts of thousands of women
with silicone implants since they were first introduced in the
1960s. I even wrote articles in favor of silicone.
Then Paula S. came
to see me in 1992. At age 32, she had at least three breast surgeries, and each
time her breasts became rock-hard and painful. She could not lie on her
stomach. We replaced the silicone with smooth saline implants. Within a short
time these too became hard, as did the next set. Paula insisted on having her
implants removed. She would not heed my warnings about deformity and scarring,
which we had all been told inevitably follows removal without replacement. To
my surprise, she looked terrific - normal, albeit smaller - and she felt
better.
Paula's problem turned out to be common: Most breasts with
silicone gel implants become hard with time. It's
called capsular contracture. All foreign objects in the body get encapsulated -
just as the tissue around a splinter gets hard - until the foreign body is
removed. Women with capsular contracture often end up with disfigured breasts
and pain.
Recently I saw
Helen S., 71, who had implants 23 years ago. Her breasts also had hardened and
become painful. In addition, an MRI showed rupture of the implants and
calcification of the surrounding scar tissue. When I removed the implants, the
cavity was filled with gooey, liquid silicone that had ruptured; there was
virtualy no implant wall left.
In the last 14 years, I have removed
implants from almost 1,000 women.
I have found roughly 50% of their implants have
ruptured within 10 years, and more than 70% have ruptured within 15 years.
We are still not sure of all the places where the micro-droplets
of silicone end up, though I have found it in lymph nodes.
Despite
these known hazards, the Food and Drug Administration, under
pressure from implant manufacturers, plastic surgeons and patients, is allowing
as of Januray 2007, a new generation of silicone implants in women age 22 and
over. The new generations of implants, we are assured, are less likely to
rupture.
This claim has been made for every previous generation of
breast implant.
To monitor women's health, the Food and Drug Administration will
require women who receive implants to have regular MRls and has recommended
that the implants be replaced every 10 years.
It is a pity that
women will become the experimental lab rats for these
implants. They, not the manufacturers, will have to pay for the
MRIs and replacements as recommended.
Most plastic surgeons vehemently
deny any connection between health complaints
and leaking silicone implants.
I have seen a disturbing number of
patients with symptoms, including fatigue,
short-term memory loss, joint and muscle pains, skin rashes,
disturbed sleep patterns, depression
and hair loss, that clear up when implants
are removed.
Last year, I completed a review of the last 500 gel
implant removals I performed, and found that more than half the women had
similar symptoms, ranging from mild to debilitating.
According to the
manufacturers' own literature, one in four women has additional surgery within
the first year. Many women have multiple surgeries.
"Women deciding to
have these implants need to be prepared to have additional surgery," cautioned
Dr. Daniel Schultz, head of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at
the FDA.
At current
implantation rates, these devices will be in the bodies of 5% of
American women within a decade.
As I
now see it, grossly outsized artificial breasts are a deformity that
flouts medical standards and even the plastic surgeons
society's own definition of "cosmetic" - all too
often encouraged by the media, which celebrates these
water balloons for
self-esteem. I no longer perform cosmetic
breast augmentation." - Edward Melmed, MD
An interesting side note is that women seeking
breast implants seem to have a higher-than-average risk of underlying
psychological problems. Women
with breast implants are three times more likely to kill themselves than other women according to the
British Medical Journal."The slippery slope is if you go to
a surgeon to solve
self-esteem problems they will not be
fixed." - Psychiatrist Mark I. Levy, MD, University of California in San
Francisco
"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what
medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the
souls of those who live under
tyranny." –
Thomas Jefferson
The Food
and Drug Administration announced new guidelines as of January 2006
which enable researchers to
test
experimental
drugs earlier on
human volunteers to ‘see' how their
bodies react. Such testing would
replace some of the early experiments now required to be
carried out on animals.America is returning to the era before 1965 when
it became mandatory for patients to sign a written notice of the potential
benefits and risks of participating in a clinical trial or other experiment.
Only after 1965 did most institutions
implement ethics boards to
control and restrain
human experimentation.
In the
early 1900s, physicians in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio injected
dozens of orphans with syphilis and tuberculosis in experiments.
In the
Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which ran from 1932 to 1972 and in which doctors
in the U.S. Public Health Service studying syphilis denied treatment to 399
poor black sharecroppers so they could document the disease's progression. Any
more wonder why black Americans have a hard
time trusting authority?
From the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s more than
4000 radiological experiments were conducted upon tens of thousands of deceived
Americans. Most of these
Americans were not told the specifics of the
experiments being conducted on them.
I remember as a child one of the
things that convinced me that Nazis were horrible was that they conducted
medical experiments on Jews.
Is America any better?
Although the
Food and Drug Administration
allows pharmaceutical companies to
legally experiment on people to see what the effect of a chemical will have on
them the Food and Drug
Administration refuses to allow people to experiment on themselves.
Pharmaceuticals not approved by the
Food and Drug Administration
can not be used by any individual residing within
Food and Drug Administration
jurisdiction.
Terminally ill
individuals that request
unapproved pharmaceuticals -
pharmaceuticals still undergoing
clinical trial, pharmaceuticals banned
as too and experimental
pharmaceuticals - are told that the
risks involved are unacceptable.
The risks to who?
If you are
going to die anyway how is it a risk to experiment with unapproved
pharmaceuticals?
Actually it is
not the risk to you that is of concern but the risk of the legal exposure of
the pharmaceutical manufacture if the
experimental drugs kill you quicker than
the terminal condition does.
Of course, no regime of
pharmaceutical (chemical) treatment
might ever by necessary if the chemical manufactures had not polluted the
environment with
toxins that cause
cancer. (But what red blooded
American capitalist, in this case chemical/pharmaceuticals manufactures, would not
want to have created such a huge profit center.)
The Food and
Drug Administration issued a legal opinion in January 2006 that
Food and Drug Administration
approved labels on drugs give the
pharmaceutical
industry broad immunity from
lawsuits.
If the advertised
drugs creates any of the ‘disclosed' conditions -
lymphoma, heart attack, severe diarrhea, stroke, etcetera - then the
pharmaceutical
industry is not liable. If a warning
occurs on the label you can expect a percentage
of the population to contract
the disease through use of the drug.
If you happen to
be the one that contracts a disclosed condition too bad! You were
warned!
"Americans have been left in
the dark about the contingent
nature of the approval of
drugs. Patients are paying to be
human guinea pigs in real
world trials that have no end." - Represenative Edward J. Markey
"To a
real degree, the people who get a
drug in the first few years after its
approval are being experimented
on." - Dr. Brian L. Strom, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the
University of
Pennsylvania
Dr. Lester M. Crawford, appointed
by George W. Bush as the
Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner, pleaded guilty to
conflict of interest and false reporting of ownership of stock in October 2006.
(Dr. Lester M. Crawford made regulatory decisions
affecting companies he held stock in.)
"What are the possible
consequences of financial bias in clinical research and practice guidelines?
One is that physicians may be more likely to prescribe a drug for a condition
that should first be treated with non-pharmacologic remedies. 'Another is that
prescribing the newest, research touted drug may 'expose patients to side
effects not fully recognized in the drug's clinical trials. Still another is
that new drugs are the most expensive on the market; even though they may be no
more effective than cheaper, generic substitutes." - Jerome P. Kassirer
"In recent years, the Food and
Drug Administration has been run in a manner that maximizes
profits to drug companies at the expense of
protecting the public. The drug companies
frequently submit research that
they commissioned, while the Food and
Drug Administration rubber-stamps the approvals to get the drugs out to
the public as quickly as possible." - Jeff Graber
Clinical trials of new
drugs are no longer required to be
tested on animals first.
Clinical trials of new
drugs now are all done for profit. A
clinical trial operator
is hired to test the new
drugs on
uninformed individuals.
As long as the operator of the
clinical trial sticks
with approved procedure they are exonerated from any
harm they have done. The uninformed, or
those in financial difficulties, are enlisted for cash to participate in
testing of the new
drugs on
humans.
In a
clinical trial in
Britain in 2006 six men were given a experimental
drug at ten minute intervals. Nino
Abdlehady was given $3500 to participate in an
experiment as a
human guinea pig in
testingTGN1412, an antibody
manufactured by fusing mouse and
human cells. Nino Abdlehady was
administered one five hundredth of what would be a standard dose. The
drug "ripped through" Nino Abdlehady body
"like wildfire". Nino Abdlehady's head swelled to twice its normal size. Nino
Abdlehady was unconscious for 8 days.
Nino Abdlehady stated that by the time he
was administered the drug the first
volunteers where already experiencing severe
reactions. The man next to him, who had been injected minutes before him
complained of head pain "like rockets
going off". Even though at this time it must have
been apparent to researchers that the
drug was causing adverse effects they
went ahead and gave it to Nino Abdlehady.
A deal is a deal and the
researchers would not be paid unless
they followed strict procedure.
The six
human guinea pigs screamed
in pain, ripped their clothes off,
began convulsing and then lost consciousness. All the
human guinea pigs were
hospitalized with some suffering major organ
failure. The value of their
lives - $3500. For thirty five hundred
dollars these human guinea
pigs nearly lost their lives!
Obviously they were not very well informed about
drug testing experiments on
humans!
Over the last 25 years, clinical
research has been largely privatized. Three-quarters of the
clinical studies published in the three
most respected medical journals,
the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American
Medical Association and the Lancet, are now
commercially
funded.
As a result, our medical
knowledge grows not in the direction that
best improves our health but toward corporate
profits, the way that plants grow toward
sunlight.
Before 1980, most medical
studies were publicly funded, and most
academic researchers scorned
industry support.
Now, however,
the vast majority of
clinical trials are
commercially
funded, and with the financial stakes so
high, there is mounting evidence of
individual
scientists and
corporations
manipulating their findings. (Perhaps that is
why a Harris poll taken in early 2006 revealed that only 9% of
Americans feel the
pharmaceutical
industry is
trustworthy.)
It is vital to
protect the integrity of our medical
knowledge. The journals, and the peer
reviewers they rely on, are in the untenable position of having to
trust that
corporate sponsors have accurately
and completely reported their findings.
At present, journal editors and
peer reviewers typically are not allowed unrestricted access to the data from
commercially sponsored
research.
Amazingly, many drug
company funded
researchers who write the articles are
also not allowed access to all of the data the company has collected.
The evidence shows that it is time for the journals to change their
policies from trust to "trust, but verify."
The journals
should introduce a new standard requiring an independent audit of the accuracy
and completeness of research reports before they are sent out for peer review.
These scientific auditors should be
statisticians and medical experts who
are completely free of
conflicts of interest and are given
unfettered access to the data.
"Americans waste billions each year on
drugs of dubious value.
Until we
find a way to fund quality
controls on published research, the cost of our
medical care will continue to soar and our health will
suffer."
- John Abramson, MD clinical
instructor Harvard Medical School
"Pfizer,
Merck and Glaxo-SmithKline are making a
mockery of efforts to create transparency in
clinical trials. They
are giving nonsense details written in a
way to hide what they are doing." -Dr.
Jeffrey M. Drazen, Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of
Medicine, May 2005. (In 2005 18 US Senators and 62 US Represenatives owned
stock in Pfizer.)
"People think the
Food and Drug Administration
is protecting them. It is not. What the
Food and Drug Administration
is doing and what the public thinks it is
doing are as different as night and
day." - Dr Herbert Ley,
Food and Drug Administration
commissioner, in testimony before a United States Senate
hearing
In a survey of
Food and Drug Administration
scientists in 2006 - 39% said the agency was
not acting effectively to protect public health, 15% said they had been asked
to exclude or alter conclusions in agency documents and 37% said that
administrators were committed to approving
products for sale before
assuring product
safety.
A survey, published in the New England Journal of
Medicine in 2006, sent to 893 clinical trial review board members asked
them if they had corporate
financial ties which included funding of
research, consulting, receiving royalties, owning stock or sitting on a
corporate board. Of 574 responses
36% said they had financial ties.
If the 319 who did not respond
had financial ties to a corporation but
did not fill out the survey (I am surprised anyone would admit they did) plus
the 206 who admitted they did then that would bring the percentage to 58% -
nearly two thirds of the clinical trial review board members.
Dr. P.
Trey Sunderland III, a researcher at the National Institute of Health, received
more than $285 thousand for providing samples of spinal fluid drawn from
National Institute of Health patients to Pfizer Inc. Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III
apeared before a congressional hearing put refused to testify basing his
refusal on the 5th Amendent of the Constitution.
If you
trust your doctor in prescribing the right
drugs for you, you might like to
know that the
pharmaceutical
industry has started a new program to help
bypass the caps on the price of drugs
sold in California related to workmen's compensation claims. If these
drugs are bought through a prescription
then the price controls kick in but if they are
sold directly to the individual by the doctor
then the price controls do not apply. A doctor
who prescribes a 90 tablet bottle of 800 milligram ibuprofen can clear a
profit of $65.50 on every bottle sold
according to DispenseXpress which buys drugs in quantities and repackages them for
sale through doctors.
One question: If a doctor has a choice between
two medications to prescribe, has the opportunity to make a few bucks by
prescribing one and nothing by prescribing the
other, which
drug is he likely to prescribe?
After Merck won approval
for Gardasil in June 2006 Merck funneled
money through Women in Government
in a bid to change state laws by making it
mandatory for 11 to 12 year old girls to be vaccinated with
Merck's new cervical cancer
vaccine.
Merck stands to make a fortune off
Gardasil as Merck is charging $360 for
the three shot regime. Approximately 2 million American girls would need to be vaccinated
yearly, Merck would gross $720 million a
year if the Gardasil vaccine became
mandatory. Gardasil will not block infection with all of the human papilloma
virus types that can cause cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer
Society 3,700 American women died of cervical cancer in 2002 which is about
3 out of 100,000. (In 2005 11 US Senators and 30 US Represenatives owned stock
in Merck.)
In Febuary 2007, the
Food and Drug Administration
notified health care providers that infants have been contracting a serious
bowell condition after being given a Merck vaccine to protect against
rotavirus.
health care
Expenditures for hospital care increased 90% from
$462 billion in 1997 to $873 billion in 2007. "For-profit insures have had decades to show us a workable system and
they have failed. Strong evidence that a taxpayer-funded system is the best
available is the fact that the president, all members of Congress and all state
executives and legislators have this exact system for themselves and their
families and show absolutely no signs of giving it up. Let's end the hypocrisy
of having people with perpetual, uncancelable, taxpayer-funded health insurance
telling us that private, for-profit insurers are the answer." - Stacy
Bermingham
"The healthcare debate is about whether we see health related
only to the body or to our whole being -
body, mind and soul. Are
Americans taking responsibility for their
health, preventing disease through conscious
living and proper diet and exercise,
or has abuse of the physical
body and the quick fix by the
medical establishment become the norm? The healthcare debate is really about
what creates a healthy life. It leads us to ask if we can be truly healthy
and free of disease if we are
living a life of stress,
indifference and
selfishness. It also raises the issue
of whether we can be healthy
individuals in a polluted,
crime-ridden and fearful
society."- Ron Lowe
"The
American medical system is headed for multiple failures.
The spiraling cost of healthcare is well known: $7,100 per person this year, projected to
increase to $12,000 in 2015 and compounding at more than double the rate of
inflation. Medical care gobbles up one-sixth of the GDP.
These enormous
expenditures may be buying Americans the best
amenities in medical care - but not the best health.
Canada spends only
60% as much per person on healthcare as America. Since 1980, the longevity of all
Canadians has improved more rapidly than that of white
Americans, who typically have the best health
care.
Britain spends only 40% as much as we do on healthcare.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association,
middle-class insured Americans "are much less
healthy than their English counterparts".
Americans spend twice as much per person on
healthcare as the other 21 wealthiest
countries and yet data from the World Health Organization show that we
live the shortest amount of
time in good health.
America is wasting more than $650
billion a year on unnecessary and often harmful care.
American and
international studies show that the
more a healthcare system relies on primary
care, the better the outcomes and the lower the cost.
American medicine is heavy on specialists and
getting heavier. In just the last eight years, the number of graduates of
American medical schools choosing careers in
family practice and adult primary care has
plummeted by more than half.
Our healthcare
system is designed
to maximize profits.
Our federal
government now relies entirely on
market based, pro-business
solutions to all social problems.
No
politician wants to be tarred with the charge
of promoting "socialized medicine."
Even our nonprofit medical
instiutions shape the care they offer based on their own bottom lines instead
of the health needs of the communities they serve.
The
Food and Drug Administration
is much better at protecting the interests of the drug and
medical-device
industries than those of patients."
-
John Abramson, clinical instructor, Harvard Medical School, author of
Overdosed America
"Perhaps a third of medical
spending is now devoted to services that don't appear to improve
health or the quality of care - and may make things worse." - professor Elliott
Fisher, Dartmouth Medical School
"Several years ago, the
California Nurses Association conducted a study that demonstrated that a
single-payer healthcare system, just by cutting administrative and
insurance costs, could provide
decent, affordable healthcare to everyone. Instead of pursuing this
solution, politicians allow
insurance companies to wallow in
wealth. Another way to cut health-care costs is
to change the way medicine is practiced. Most practitioners write expensive
prescriptions rather than address the real
cause of most illness: stress and
unhealthy life-style choices, not to mention poverty and lack of health care. Sometimes
the cheapest treatment (such as exercise, diet and relaxation) is the most
effective one." - Ellen Winer RN
"Never
sacrifice your health by
working late at
night or scrimping on sleep, excercise, or
healthy eating." - Dr. Michael Roizen
"Many national healthcare
plans provide universal insurance at a lower
per-capita cost than the American system with
better results. Given the renewed
debate about health coverage in America</ | | |